This lesson will take about two hours to complete. Please log in to your account on peachpit.com to download the lesson files for this chapter, or go to the Getting Started section at the beginning of this book and follow the instructions under “Accessing the Lesson Files and Web Edition.”

Use Adobe Animate CC to change almost any aspect of an object—position, color, transparency, size, rotation, and more—over time. Motion tweening is the basic technique of creating animation with symbol instances.

Getting Started

Start by viewing the finished movie file to see the animated title page that you’ll create in this lesson.

Note

If you have not already downloaded the project files for this lesson to your computer from your Account page, make sure to do so now. See “Getting Started” at the beginning of the book.

Double-click the 04End.mp4 file in the Lesson04/04End folder to play the final animation, which was exported as a video file.

The project is an animated opener that would be placed on a website for an imaginary soon-to-be-released motion picture. In this lesson, you’ll use motion tweens to animate several components on the page: the cityscape, the main actors, several old-fashioned cars, and the main title.

Close the 04End.mp4 file.

Double-click the 04Start.fla file in the Lesson04/04Start folder to open the initial project file in Animate. This file is an ActionScript 3.0 document that is partially completed and already contains many of the graphic elements imported into the library for you to use. You’ll use all the animation functionality available in an ActionScript 3.0 document, but instead of using the Flash Player for playback in a browser, you’ll export an MP4 video file.

From the view options above the Stage, choose Fit In Window, or choose View > Magnification > Fit In Window, so that you can see the entire Stage on your computer screen.

Choose File > Save As. Name the file 04_workingcopy.fla, and save it in the 04Start folder.

Saving a working copy ensures that the original start file will be available if you want to start over.